Dialogic Teaching

The term ‘dialogic teaching’ is now in regular use but like all such terms means different things to different people. As developed by Robin Alexander since the early 2000s, dialogic teaching harnesses the power of talk to engage interest, stimulate thinking, advance understanding, expand ideas, and build and evaluate arguments, empowering students for lifelong learning and democratic engagement. Being collaborative and supportive, it confers social and emotional benefits too. It also helps teachers: by encouraging students to share their thinking it enables teachers to diagnose needs, devise learning tasks, enhance understanding, assess progress, and guide students through the challenges they encounter.  Yet as defined by Alexander – though not by some others in the field – dialogic teaching is both talk and more than talk, for it enacts a distinctively dialogic stance on knowledge, learning, social relations and education itself.

During the past two decades Robin Alexander has developed and progressively refined a framework for explicating dialogic teaching and supporting teachers who wish to enhance the quality and power of classroom talk – their own as well as their students’. The framework comprised justifications, principles, repertoires and indicators, and placed particular emphasis on teacher agency, or the need for teachers to develop and draw on a range of pedagogical techniques according to circumstance and need rather than use all-purpose teaching formulae.

Early iterations were applied and evaluated in school-based development projects in Barking and Dagenham, North Yorkshire and Bolton and formed the basis for Towards Dialogic Teaching: rethinking classroom talk (1st edition 2004, 5th edition and 22nd imprint 2017). This was widely taken up in schools and teacher training courses across the UK and in several other countries. Then, from 2014-17 and with the support of the Education Endowment Foundation, a revised version of the framework was linked to a bespoke professional development programme and successfully trialled with 5000 students in schools in Birmingham Bradford and Leeds.

Now, building on all this work and on recent research in what is now a fast-expanding field, Robin Alexander’s dialogic teaching framework has been completely revised for his new book A Dialogic Teaching Companion, to be published by Routledge early in 2020. The book also includes a suggested professional development programme for implementing dialogic teaching, and it explores recent developments that have expanded and enriched the evidence and debate about classroom talk in relation to oracy, literacy, argumentation, student voice and philosophy for children as well as dialogic teaching itself.

This bibliography puts in more or less chronological order Robin Alexander’s publications to date on spoken language and dialogue in learning, teaching and education.

Dialogic teaching is just one aspect of Robin Alexander’s research from the past 40 years or so, and the publications listed here are part of a larger corpus of over 320 which includes work on many other aspects of education both inside and outside the UK. This breadth of focus underlines his claim that classroom talk cannot properly be handled in isolation from curriculum and wider aspects of pedagogy, or without engaging with the culture and history that shape educational policy, school ethos, teachers’ assumptions and of course language itself.

Dialogic teaching: the key texts

Culture and Pedagogy was a large-scale macro-micro comparative study, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, of culture, policy and pedagogy in England, France, India, Russia and the United States. The book culminates in quantitative and qualitative cross-cultural analysis of classroom talk which includes transcribed extracts from videotaped lessons in each country. The analysis covers both linguistic and paralinguistic aspects of classroom talk, and relates what is said by children and teachers to the pedagogy and culture that shape it. This work influenced the author’s approach to dialogic teaching and in Towards Dialogic Teaching he set out research foundations, justifications, repertoires, principles and indicators. This framework was progressively refined in four subsequent editions. Essays on Pedagogy extends dialogism into wider aspects of pedagogy and education, as a stance as much as a strategy. Developing Dialogue demonstrates the impact of dialogic teaching on student engagement and attainment through the Education Endowment Foundation’s successful randomised control trial (RCT) of Alexander’s approach.

From March 2020 A Dialogic Teaching Companion replaced Towards Dialogic Teaching as the core text, delving much more deeply into the field and taking account of the 2014-17 trial and other recent research. Education in Spite of Policy (2022) adds four other key papers.

  • Alexander, R.J. (2001) Culture and Pedagogy, Blackwell/Wiley, especially chapters 15 and 16, 391-528
  • Alexander, R.J. (2008) Essays on Pedagogy. Routledge, chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7, pp 72-172, and appendix, 184-191. 
  • [Alexander, R.J. (2017) Towards Dialogic Teaching: rethinking classroom talk (5th edition of text first published in 2004 and from March 2020 superseded by A Dialogic Teaching Companion, below), Dialogos. No longer available].
  • Alexander, R.J. (2018) Developing dialogue: genesis, process, trial, Research Papers in Education 33(5), 361-398.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2020) A Dialogic Teaching Companion, Routledge. A Hebrew edition will be published by Kinneret Zmora Dvir in 2024.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2022) Education in Spite of Policy, Routledge, chapters 15-18, 193-280.  

Classroom interaction in British classrooms (late 1980s/early 1990s)

These studies from the PRINDEP and CICADA research projects (funded respectively by Leeds City Council and ESRC) include (i) quantitative analysis of classroom interaction, (ii) electronic analysis of coded discourse transcripts and (iii) qualitative analysis of lesson transcripts. Together they confirm and analyse in British settings the recitation/IRE default identified during the 1960s/70s by Barnes and Britton in the UK and Cazden and Mehan in the US (plus less frequently documented variants such as pseudo-enquiry), and they begin to point the way to alternatives.

  • Alexander, R.J. and Willcocks, J. (1990) Teachers and Children in PNP Classrooms. Interim Report 11 from the Primary Needs Evaluation Project. Leeds, University of Leeds.
  • Alexander, R.J. (1995) Versions of Primary Education. Routledge, chapters 4, 5 and 6.
  • Alexander R.J., Willcocks, J., Nelson, N. (1996) Discourse, pedagogy and the National Curriculum: change and continuity in primary schools. Research Papers in Education, 11:1, 83-122.

Reports on early school-based dialogic teaching initiatives

Miscellaneous articles, chapters and monographs

  • Alexander R.J. (1996) Task, time, talk and text: signposts to effective teaching? In NCERT (ed) School Effectiveness and Learning Achievement at the Primary Stage: International Perspectives 78-106. New Delhi, NCERT.
  • Alexander R.J. (1997) Unfinished journey: pedagogy and discourse in school effectiveness research. In Kumar, K. (ed) Studies on Classroom Processes and School Effectiveness at the Primary Stage, 3-26. New Delhi, NCERT.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2001) Lessons for the chattering classes, Times Educational Supplement, 23 February. 
  • Alexander, R.J. (2001) In any language, it’s good to talk, Times Educational Supplement, 19 January.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2003), Talk in teaching and learning: international perspectives, in QCA (ed) New Perspectives on Spoken English, QCA, 26-37.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2003) Oracy, literacy and pedagogy: international perspectives, in Bearne, E., Dombey, H., Grainger, T. (ed) Interactions in Language and Literacy in the Classroom, Open University Press, 23-35.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2004) Talking to learn, Times Educational Supplement, 6 March.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2005) Talking to learn: oracy revisited, in Conner, C. (ed) Teaching Texts. Nottingham, National College for School Leadership, 75-93.
  • Alexander, R.J., (2005) (in Hebrew, translated by Nadav Segal) Education, culture and cognition: intervening for growth.  Jerusalem: Avnei Roshna Resource Centre. 
  • Alexander, R.J. (2006) The people’s voice, Times Educational Supplement, 9 June.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2006) Education as Dialogue: moral and pedagogical choices for a runaway world, Hong Kong Institute of Education / Dialogos.
  • Wolfe, S. and Alexander, R.J. (2008) Argumentation and dialogic teaching: alternative pedagogies for a changing world, 18 pp. London, Futurelab.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2008) Culture, dialogue and learning: notes on an emerging pedagogy, in Mercer, N. and Hodgkinson, S. (ed) Exploring Talk in School, Sage, pp 93-114.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2009) De l’usage de parole en classe: une comparaison internationale, Revue Internationale d’Éducation de Sèvres, 50, 35-48.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2010) Speaking but not listening: accountable talk in an unaccountable context, (2009 UKLA International Conference keynote address), Literacy 44(3), 103-111.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2013) Improving oracy and classroom talk: achievements and challenges. Primary First, 10, 22-29.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2014) Triumphs and dilemmas of dialogue, in Lefstein, A. and Snell, J. Better than Best Practice: developing teaching and learning through dialogue, Routledge, 72-74.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2015) Dialogic pedagogy at scale: oblique perspectives, in Resnick, L., Asterhan, C. and Clarke, S. (ed) Socialising Intelligence through Academic Talk and Dialogue. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association, 413-423.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2018) Developing Dialogue: genesis, process, trial, Research Papers in Education 33(5), 361-398.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2019) Whose discourse? Dialogic pedagogy in a post-truth world.  Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 7, 1-20. 
  • Alexander, R.J. (2019) Dialogic pedagogy in a post-truth world. In Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. and Major, L. (2019) The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education. Routledge, 672-686.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2020) Dialogisk pædagogik I en post-sandhedsverden. In O.Dysthe, J.J.Ness and P.O.Kirkegaard Dialogisk pædagogik, kreativitet og læring. Copenhagen, Klim, 38-73.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2023) Epilogue. In P.Jones, A.Simpson and A.Thwaite (eds) Dialogic Pedagogy: discourse in contexts from pre-school to university. Routledge, 255-9.
  • Alexander, R.J. (2024) Oracy: a further note. Primary Matters 41.

Multimedia and online materials

Dialogue and the Cambridge Primary Review

The Cambridge Primary Review (supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) makes dialogue, pupil voice and the empowerment of both children and teachers fundamental to educational advancement, building high quality classroom talk into aims, the curriculum, teaching and learning, assessment and professional development.

Talk reform and national policy

Robin Alexander also addresses the challenge of raising the profile and quality of classroom talk in a country where historically it has not been treated with the seriousness it deserves, either professionally or in education policy. The 2010-13 government review of the national curriculum presented an opportunity to encourage the much-needed cultural shift, and in February 2012, in response to Alexander’s representations, the Department for Education (DfE) hosted a seminar to consider the issues and how they might be addressed. The DfE response to a Freedom of Information request revealed that his keynote at this seminar (below) persuaded the government to give spoken language a more prominent place than was its initial inclination.

In 2019 an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) launched an enquiry into the condition and improvement of oracy in England’s schools. Alexander’s main written submission to the enquiry is linked below.

In 2024, Geoff Barton, former General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) set up a Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England. See Robin Alexander’s written evidence to the Commission below and his podcast with Geoff Barton under ‘Multimedia materials’ above.

Classroom talk, social disadvantage and educational attainment

The 2014-17 joint project of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust and the University of York was supported by the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF) and combined an independent randomised control trial (RCT) with in-house analysis of videodata to assess the capacity of dialogic teaching, as developed by Alexander, to increase engagement and raise educational standards among children who are socially disadvantaged. Following the trial with 5000 pupils  in three English cities, EEF reported in 2017 that those whose teachers had received the dialogic teaching intervention made on average two months additional progress in tests in English, mathematics and science compared with their control group peers. These attainment gains were achieved after an intervention lasting only 20 weeks. Further information:

http://cprtrust.org.uk/research/classroom-talk/ and https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/dialogic-teaching.

Dialogic teaching examined

Alexander’s approach to dialogic teaching is frequently referenced and widely discussed. Three examples are noted here. Kim and Wilkinson provide the fullest account to date, showing how the approach relates to other work on classroom talk. Lefstein and Snell do a similar though less extensive job for an earlier version of the framework, while the book by Jones et al contains studies showing how Alexander’s approach has been applied in a variety of educational settings in the UK and Australia.

  • Kim, M-Y. and Wilkinson, I.A.G. (2019) What is dialogic teaching? Constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing a pedagogy of classroom talk. Language, Learning and Social Interaction, 21, 70-86.
  • Lefstein, A. and Snell, J. (2014) Better Than Best Practice: developing teaching and learning through dialogue. London, Routledge.
  • Jones, P., Simpson, A., and Thwaite, A. (eds) (2023) Dialogic Pedagogy: discourse in contexts from pre-school to university. London, Routledge.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) identifies school and classroom strategies that offer the potential to tackle educational disadvantage, and subjects them to independent randomised control trial. Since 2011 EEF has funded 190 such programmes, but only 17 of them have emerged from their trials to be listed as ‘promising interventions’; that is to say, approaches that under normal working conditions have a significant impact on pupils’ learning outcomes and for which the trial evidence is strong and secure. 

One of this select group is the Cambridge Primary Review Trust/University of York Dialogic Teaching Project. This ran from 2014-17, and was co-directed by Robin Alexander and Frank Hardman and based at the University of York. The classroom programme, which was constructed round Robin Alexander’s dialogic teaching framework, was piloted in London and trialled with nearly 5000 pupils in 78 schools in Birmingham, Bradford and Leeds. Reporting in July 2017, the independent evaluation from Sheffield Hallam University calculated that after only 20 weeks pupils in the intervention group were up to two months ahead of their control group peers in standardised tests of English, mathematics and science; and that while some of the teachers found the programme challenging, they fully endorsed its purposes and strategy. Meanwhile, the York team’s coded videodata tracked striking changes in the character and quality of interaction in the intervention classrooms, and confirmed the effectiveness of the project’s strategy for professional development and support.

Robin Alexander’s latest book, A Dialogic Teaching Companion, builds on this work and on international research to provide much revised and expanded versions of both the dialogic teaching framework and the strategy for professional development alongside a full discussion of the field of classroom dialogue as a whole.

Further information

Order here.

See Robin Alexander’s A Dialogic Teaching Companion, Appendix 2, for texts, lesson transcripts and video extracts from various authors and sources which are recommended for further study and professional development. Links are provided where appropriate, including to these from two of Robin Alexander’s own projects:

Towards Dialogic Teaching. A collection of 24 video clips from a 2002-7 dialogic teaching development project involving 40 primary schools in the north of England. The clips, indexed and annotated, exemplify different kinds of classroom talk and were collected to encourage professional study, discussion and analysis, not as examples of so-called ‘best practice’. Access these video clips via the link near the top of p209.

Talk Transcribed. 13 transcribed lesson episodes, some of them from the collection above. The intention is the same: discussion and analysis, not modelling. These extracts were used to support professional development in the 2014-17 Education Endowment Foundation Dialogic Teaching Project, which entailed a randomised control trial of Robin Alexander’s dialogic teaching framework with 5000 students in 78 schools. Access these transcripts via the link near the top of p209.